


Lunch at Gibraltar

by HappyLeech



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Murder, blood and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2018-11-01 17:55:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10927011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/pseuds/HappyLeech
Summary: When Overwatch goes radio silent, Talon starts to worry that they're up to something.Gabriel Reyes couldn't have imagined what he'd find in Gibraltar...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nox (Sheut)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheut/gifts).



Now, Gabriel Reyes wouldn’t exactly say that Talon was worried that Overwatch had been quiet over the last 5 months, but the organization was wary that Winston and his merry band of idiots were up to something. Wary enough to sent a team to break into the Gibraltar Watchpoint, a team consisting of himself, Sombra, Widowmaker, and five grunts.

“Social media is in an uproar,” Sombra said, flicking through nine or ten of her purple screens. “Neither D.Va or Santos have posted anything in almost half a year, and coupled with Santos’ last update—“ Sombra swiped her finger across a video, and it went full screen.

There was silence, then a view of the ground, the person holding the phone obviously running. The video went fuzzy for a second as the phone was dropped, the person, Santos, cursed, then it cut off. The entire video was about ten seconds long and was posted online without commentary.

“People think that he and Song are dead—KIA, I’m guessing,” Sombra finished, shrinking the video away.

Widow snorted. “So, two of their members die and the entire organization goes under? Pathetic.”

Gabriel grunted and decided against reminding Widow that the same thing practically happened to the original Overwatch as well.

“Let’s see…” Sombra continued, pulling up what looked like a stack of police reports. “Lindholm’s wife has reported him and their elder daughter missing. Same with Oxton—her girlfriend put in the report 4 months ago.”

Gabriel couldn’t tell if the noise Widow made was pleased or not.

“Amari jr. is AWOL too—the Egyptian branch of Helix put out a missing persons for her 4 months ago too, Zaryanova is being presumed dead by Russian news outlets. Ziegler's hospital put an alert for her out 3 months ago… No sightings of either of the Shimada’s, that cowboy you keep an eye one is also out of the picture, even the two Australians Overwatch picked up are gone…” Sombra trailed off, the police reports and internal memos filling the space in front of her. “This…Gabe, this is weird.”

“It’s Reaper,” he grumbled at her, even though he knew that the reminder wasn’t going to stick. “I agree though. It’s peculiar.”

But he didn’t have much time to consider what happened as the plane came to a halt and everyone started to get ready. Gabriel ignored them, needing nothing except what he had on him, sliding out of the vehicle and down onto the tarmac.

 

* * *

 

 

Logically, they shouldn’t have been able to even get as close as they did without attracting some kind of attention, but instead there was, well, no one. The wind kept the area free of dust, but even he could see that no one and nothing had moved in the area in some time.

 _‘There is no one in the open,’_ Widow reported, her voice betraying a slight hint of confusion and aggravation. _‘Where are they?’_

 _‘No idea, chica. Gabe—what does it look like on the ground? I’m making my way to the server room and this place is empty.’_ Sombra responded, huffing.

“Empty. That infernal pink mech is here though—I thought the Korean girl was attached to this thing.” He replied, before frowning. “There’s…an awful lot of blood around it.”

Enough dried blood that Gabriel knew that the donor was dead.

 _‘Do you really care though?’_ Sombra asked, knowing that yes, yes he did. ‘ _One less Overwatch agent is a good thing.’_

Gabriel didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer, instead sweeping through the nearest doorway, on the look out for anything or anyone.

 _‘The rooms…There are no people, but I can see their things. Dead plants, rotted food…merde.’_ Widow breathed. _‘I am changing positions—I will join you on the ground.’_

 _‘Are you sure that’s wise, Amelie?’_ Sombra asked, only chuckling once Widow started to curse her out. _‘I mean, considering your track record?’_

“The mission, you two,” Gabriel snarled, prepared to stop a fight before it escalated, and heard the two women grumble in agreement. “Good—keep an eye out.”

He stepped into one of the three major workshops, probably the one belonging to the Australian from the state of disarray, and stopped dead in his tracks.

There were the dismantled remains of an omnic in the center of the room. Now, this normally wouldn’t have made him pause, but Gabriel knew that Overwatch had a Bastion unit in their employ. Apparently, it was a pacifist—a joke if you asked him, having been on the receiving end of it’s gun more than once—which made the scattered metal pieces all the more unnerving.

Gabriel frowned, taking a step forwards to investigate further—the Australian duo were, obviously, not fans of omnics after all so they could have done the dismantling—when a cracking noise made him pause. Shifting his foot, he looked down to see what he’d stepped on.

The skeleton of a small bird.

“Sombra, Widow. I found the remains of one of the omnics that works with Overwatch. Keep an eye out,” he said, taking a quick look around the rest of the workshop and seeing nothing else of interest. Still, something about the whole endeavor felt wrong to him.

 _‘Really? Shit. I haven’t—oh! Server room. I’ll let you know if I find anything on these babies,’_ Sombra replied.

 _‘I will join you then. Someone must watch your back,’_ Widow said, and Gabriel grunted in approval. He suddenly didn’t want the two of them to be wandering the place on their own.

The next workshop must have belonged to the Vishkar traitor, Vaswani, filled as it was with hard-light structures and shelving. This room also contained the body of another omnic, dismantled as well. She had been decapitated, her horns sitting to the side on a short table, and her gun in many, many small pieces on the floor.

“Found the body of that Numbani omnic—the beefed up OR15. They’re destroyed, dead, but not completely ruined…Like they wanted anyone who came here to know who they were supposed to be.” Gabriel reported, eyes sweeping for anything else before he left.

The next and last workshop on the floor had to be Lindholm’s, and Gabriel actually cursed when he walked into it.

While he didn’t hate omnics, like one would think after his role in the Crisis, he also had no great deal of love for them. He did, however, hold a great deal of respect for the omnics of the Shambali and had turned down the Mondatta job because of that.

“Fuck—every workshop I’ve gone into so far has the body of an omnic inside. Widow—they didn’t hire you to take out the rest of the Shambali monks, did they?”

He ignored what acidic reply Widow spat at him, instead stepping further into the room to examine the disassembled body of Tekhartha Zenyatta.

The omnic’s head had been severed from his body, alongside his limbs which were neatly laid out beside his torso. The LED’s in his head had been punctured, and the orbs that he used as weapons were split and cracked like his killer had gone at them with a hammer.

Unless the rest of Overwatch had changed sides and become militantly anti-omnic, something bad had happened.

 _‘I’m having trouble, Gabe—the AI is offline and I need to start her up again before I can get into their files—they must have been attacked_ once, _because their security is way beefed up. Wonder why they did that…’_ Sombra trailed off, but Gabriel didn’t bother to rise to the bait.

“Keep me updated you two—I’m going for the medical wing next.”

 

* * *

 

 

Luckily for him, the lights in the facility were still working, but Gabriel almost wished they didn’t when he encountered the next patch of dried blood. Again, he knew that whomever lost the blood wasn’t alive anymore, and he moved along as he wondered whose it was.

Then he reached the medical wing, opened the doors, and knew that they needed to leave.

Immediately.

The first thing he saw was the prosthetics. On a stretcher lay four arms and one leg, and when he moved closer to look at them, he was able to identify who they belonged to. The one arm and leg belonged to the Australian, one of the others belonged to Vaswani, and one belonged to Lindholm. The last arm, however, made him curse and spit fire, leaning back against the wall.

“Goddamnit, Jesse. What the hell happened here?”

After taking a moment to compose himself, and by that he didn’t compose himself at all, he took a deep, deep breath and called for Sombra.

“Sombra—do you have anything yet?” he asked, skipping past a blood-spattered observation window to look into another room, this one holding the remaining prosthetics of the Overwatch agents. Shimada’s, Santos’, and—

“Goddamnit, Sombra! Do you have anything? I am staring at the prosthetics used by almost every disabled Overwatch member and I do want to know why the _fuck_ Jesse and Fareeha’s limbs are here.”

‘ _I—okay like, I know we’re not on their team or side or whatever—‘_ Gabriel could hear Widow snort through Sombra’s earpiece and sighed. Sombra must have been sitting on her again. _‘But like…aren’t those two your family? What the fuck is going on?’_

“I actually wish I knew. Can you access the cameras yet?” Gabriel said, grinding his teeth as he turned away from the room, looking for someone or something to blame.

_‘Sí. About half of them are destroyed or distorted though—I can’t see anything in the medical wing. Be careful, Gabriel.’_

With a sigh, he closed the connection and turned to the last door in the hallway, before scrambling backwards, tapping at his earpiece.

“Sombra—I’m coming up to join you. We need to make a plan and get out of here.” He said, staring in almost disbelief at what was laying on the table.

Gabriel had been Blackwatch. He’d dealt with all kinds of dirty shit, bodies, torture. He was also on the team that recovered Genji Shimada in Hanamura and knew personally what the younger man could and couldn’t live without in terms of his cybernetic implants.

The robotic body that was placed on the table, no blood nor flesh attached to the implants, meant that Genji was dead and Talon had just walked into a giant crime scene—one that Gabriel was now more than personally invested in.

He swallowed thickly, staring at the body laid out in front of him. The armour had all been removed, placed neatly to the side and leaving the exposed mechanical tissue and wires bare to the world.

 _'What—Gabe, Gabriel. What’s wrong?’_ Sombra asked, and he blinked his eyes back to focus before answering.

“Sombra, someone has completely dismantled Genji Shimada,” Gabriel replied, spinning on his heel and trying not to feel sick. He had hoped that something had just happened, everyone had to leave in a hurry minus the omnics, and that Jesse and Fareeha and Genji were safe, but obviously not.

 _‘How, Reaper, does one dismantle a cyborg?’_ Widow asked, and he snorted, trying to calm down and still failing.

“I’d guess by killing him and removing the flesh and bone parts from his cybernetics? Fuck, Amelie, I don’t know what’s happening here but—“

It was all he got the chance to say before Sombra interrupted him.

_‘Premio gordo! Sorry, sorry, just got through the security and the AI is booting right now. Hopefully, she’ll be able to tell us what the hell happened.’_

 

* * *

 

 

Rushing to the server room—the monkey’s office, really, Gabriel took notice of several more worrying things.

Angela’s staff, broken in half and laying on a table. Jesse’s hat, pinned to the wall with a knife. Ana’s rifle, the end mangled and bent and sitting on a couch. Mei-Ling’s small robot smashed into pieces in the corner. Reinhardt’s hammer abandoned and gathering a layer of dust.

 _‘Annnnnnd she’s awake! Hello there, Athena. How are—‘_ there was a loud blaring, an alarm that made Gabriel spit out curses as the feedback set off his communicator before it went silent so he could hear the AI speaking to Sombra.

 _‘Scanning…Sombra. Not authorized to access logs. Any attempt to do so will cause me to force a system reboot and wipe,’_ Athena said, almost sounding worried. _‘Scanning…Amelie Lacroix. Is Gabriel Reyes here as well?’_

There was a silence before Sombra answered, sounding more annoyed than anything. _‘Yeah, he is. What do you mean you’ll force a system wipe? Who authorized that mess?’_

 _‘Gabriel Reyes is the only one authorized to access logs, as per Ana Amari. Please, Sombra, tell him to hurry.’_ Athena replied, and with that Gabriel disintegrated, skipping elevators and stairwells to get there as fast as he could.


	2. Chapter 2

Gabriel burst into the server room in a flurry, making Sombra twitch in annoyance and making Widow snort as he reformed.

  
“What do you want, Athena?” he demanded, waiting for an answer from the AI. “Why did Ana change your settings?”

  
Athena almost seemed to perk up, her voice going from emotionless to one filled with a touch of joy once she realized he was in the room. “Ana trusted you would arrive here, and she said that you were the only one to tell. Authorization code?”

  
For a moment, Gabriel blanked—the last time he’d used his codes was probably a week before the base collapsed—before he unconsciously straightened up.

  
“Gabriel Reyes, authorization code 734490-BW-Commander.”

  
Behind him, Gabriel could hear Sombra clicking buttons, recording him presumably, but he didn’t stop her. After all, what would she use the recording for? Poking her nose into the ruins of the Swiss headquarters?

 

“Gabriel,” the voice that echoed through the room wasn’t Athena’s, but Ana’s. He would be lying if hearing her voice didn’t make his heart hurt, and Gabriel was glad for his mask, not for the first time. “I don’t have a lot of time right now—whoever is doing this is coming after me now, and this is only a wish, a hope that you’ll come knocking. I don’t know how many of us are dead and I don’t know why this is happening. But you need to be careful, Gabriel. Something happened, and Jack—“ the recording skipped, or was paused for a moment, then Ana returned, whispering. “I’m getting out of here, if I can, but Gabriel. I don’t know who is the one killing everyone. I have an idea…but be careful, and get out of here.”

  
The recording cut off, leaving only silence.

  
“Fuck.”

  
It took a moment, before Gabriel started to pace. If he’d had the chance, he’d be running his fingers through his hair. Instead, he started to ghost around, his feet disappearing into smog as he paced the room.

  
“Gabe—when uh, when Amari says Jack, she doesn’t really mean Morrison, does she?” Sombra asked, pulling up something—Gabriel wasn’t paying attention—on her tablet. “I mean, I was sure he wasn’t dead just because you and Amari aren’t dead, but—“ she motioned blindly at nothing, like it was going to give her the answers.

 

“Sombra, don’t,” he ground out, before snapping his head towards Widow. “Call in the rest of the team, tell them to comb the area around the ship, and then we leave. We are not spending more time than we need to here.”

  
Widow nodded, tapping on her communicator. “Search and observe. Report in if you find anything, understand?” She paused, frowned more severely, and tapped at it again. “Do you understand?”

  
Gabriel sighed. No reply meant that whoever had killed the omnics and Genji was more than likely still around, and that the grunts on the mission with them were more than likely dead. 

 

“Sombra—can you get cameras outside at the ship?”

  
“Nada, Gabe. Outside is nothing more than static, but I can get—huh. I’m losing cameras. Time to leave?” she looked over at him, and he nodded.

  
“Time to leave. Sombra is going to download your archives, Athena, and if you’ll let her, your operating system. I have more questions for you.” Gabriel said, ignoring the ‘ _ I am? _ ’ that came from Sombra and motioning to Widowmaker. “We’re sticking together, so don’t disappear.”

  
She grunted. “I understand. What is the plan then?”

 

“We get out of here. I get the feeling that whoever is doing this wants some kind of conflict, and I don’t want to give it to them,” Gabriel motioned to the door, before wincing as a spike of feedback hit him, hit them all. 

  
_ ‘I can verify the deaths of only some of the agents. Would you like me to list them?’  _ Athena asked, her voice echoing in his ear. 

 

Sombra gave him a thumbs up to let him know that she’d started to take copies of everything on Athena’s hard drives, and he grunted, not really wanting to know, but knowing he needed to. “Who.”

  
_ ‘Hana Song, Lúcio Correia dos Santos, Mei-Ling Zhou, Tekhartha Zenyatta, Orisa, Bastion, Jamison Fawkes, Mako Rutledge, Ana Amari, Genji Shimada, Angela Ziegler. I can not verify the status of the rest of the agents at this time, as my files have been tampered with.’ _

  
Gabriel closed his eyes. So Genji really was dead. He’d hoped that maybe it was a hoax, that the younger man was somehow still alive. And to know that Ana hadn’t escaped after leaving him the message... “No report on Fareeha or Jesse?”

  
_ ‘No. I am sorry, Gabriel. Commander Reyes. Reaper. Which would you like me to use?’  _ And she did sound sorry, for an AI. She had been programmed well.

  
“Reaper—you’re having issues with your files?” he asked, then pointed to Sombra. “See if you can get them unblocked. I want to know what really happened here.”

  
“Mhm, already working on it. That’s okay, right Athena?” Sombra asked, her and Widow following Gabriel as he made to leave the room. 

  
_ ‘…I suppose. Please, be careful Sombra.’ _ Athena replied, and Gabriel didn’t blame the AI for sounding wary. Sombra could cause a significant amount of damage if she wanted to.  _ ‘But if you leave Gibraltar now, my connection will be severed before everything can be transferred.’ _

  
Of course. “How long?” Gabriel asked, suppressing the urge to rest his head in his hands and groan.

  
“45 minutes,” both Sombra and Athena said at the same time, and this time Gabriel didn’t bother to stop himself from groaning. 

  
“Okay, new plan then. I want to know more about what happened here, so we’re going to look for a paper trail,” Gabriel reformed and nudged the door open, stepping through into the now dim hall. “Did you cut the lights, Sombra?”

  
“Why would I do that?” she replied, frowning as she punched her fingers at something on her screens. “I’m not getting them back on either. Athena?”

  
There was a pause, then the AI hesitantly answered.  _ ‘I…can not help you? It wasn’t me…third party interference.’ _

  
“So our friend, whoever it is, cut the lights. Widowmaker—watch the back,” Gabriel said, and Widow activated her visor, the red lights glowing in the gloom. “I also want to know why this person, whoever it is, laid the omnics and the prosthetics out like they did.”

  
“Drama, obvs. Whoever this is wants to put on a show, draw us in,” Sombra said. “Don’t you watch horror movies, Gabe?”

 

Gabriel didn’t bother answering, too focused on their walk. He wanted to know what the monkey’d kept on paper, and if he remembered right, his workshop was in the area…

* * *

 

  
It took them longer than Gabriel would have liked to get into Winston’s workshop, but once they got in…he wasn’t disappointed. 

  
“What…is that?” Widow asked, wrinkling her nose at the smell. “Disgusting.”

  
_ ‘Winston!’  _ The three of them, not that any of them would admit it, flinched when the AI cried out.  _ ‘Winston is one of the ones killed!—I think…he was killed in here.’ _

  
Gabriel looked over to the map table in the middle of the room, the shape sitting atop it, and nodded. “I think you’re right. Widow, take Sombra up top, see what’s on the computers up there.” 

 

Widow looked at him, the red lights in her visor flashing, before she gathered Sombra into her arm and pulled the pair of them up into Winston’s office. Gabriel walked to the table, and sighed.   
He really had no love for the monkey now, but he had been friendly with him in the past and it was strange, seeing the skull sitting on the table, surrounded by his armour.

  
_ ‘Oh, Winston…’  _ Athena whispered, the cameras in the room working so she could “see” what they were seeing.  _ ‘I…suppose I will update my casualty list then.’ _

  
“Mhm,” Gabriel moved to the computers on the ground floor, hoping that one or two pieces of paper scattered around would give him any idea of what was happening—the computers weren’t going to be any good with all of the screens and processors bashed into bits. And the papers on the desks weren’t of any help—most of them were plans to update and modify weapons, and the rest were outdated mission reports that hadn’t been filed into the computer yet.

  
Gabriel noted that the latest one was from 9 months prior, and turned back to the rest of the room.

 

None of the other files told him anything of any note when he started going through the filing cabinets, and finally he gave up, tossing a folder to the floor. “Anything, Sombra?”

  
_ ‘Mm…nope. But…I am getting pings on my motion sensor program. Someone’s headed our way—four halls away, two floors down,’ _ she sounded rather calm, considering the situation they were all in.  _ ‘We should probably get moving.’ _

  
Gabriel’s mind raced, trying to figure out the best place to go and lay low. Not back to the workshops or the medical wing…

  
“Widow, Sombra. Meet me in science wing J—Zhou’s office. She might have kept other records.” Gabriel said, sweeping out of the room without waiting for a reply from the others. Sombra likely had a blueprint and map of the watchpoint downloaded years before joining Talon, and if Widowmaker didn’t remember her way around the building, Athena would help.

  
Speaking of the AI… Gabriel grunted, slipping under doors and through vents as he ghosted his way to the science wing. “Do you know who that was headed our way, Athena?”

  
_ ‘…I can not say,’  _ she replied, and Gabriel growled.  _ ‘I can not determine who they are—they’ve blocked themselves from my sensors.’ _

_   
_ _ ‘Oh! I know how they did that! Gabe, they’re using an obedience program. Athena literally can’t tell us who it is, because she’s been modified to forget or ignore them. Can you give us a hint?’ _ Sombra asked, sounding out of breath but excited. ‘ _ If you can give us a hint, that means that I might be able to break the program.’ _

  
“Well?” Gabriel demanded, kicking open the next door in front of him. He was 2 minutes, tops, from the science wing.

  
_ ‘…He. He is…He was…He is he was he is--’  _ the AI started to stutter, and Sombra swore.

 

_ ‘Athena! ¡Maldito sea! Stop! Give me a list of, I don’t know, Winston’s favourite foods!’ _ she snapped and it took Gabriel a moment to realize she was trying to distract the AI, to keep her from seizing up and compromising her download.

 

_ ‘Winston is partial to Bananas, Peanut Butter, Nutella, Termites, Green Peas, Ginger, and the leaves of the Nettle Tree,’  _ Athena recited perfectly, then paused.  _ ‘Or….he—he was.’ _

  
Sombra breathed a sigh of relief.  _ ‘Well, I’m glad that worked. I think we would have lost you if you’d continued…But, on the plus side, I think I can break the protocol on her, and that means that I can figure out who this culprit is. We know he’s male, at least, so that’s a start, right?’ _

  
“Good. Sombra, how far are you from the lab?” Gabriel slipped under the door, looking around. It was mostly clean, weather charts and climate projections on the walls and mathematic equations scribbled on a number of whiteboards, but her desk was a mess of papers and pictures and hopefully clues.

  
_ ‘5 minutes tops, Gabe.’ _

  
He grunted, already starting to sort through the papers on the desk, looking for anything worth reading. “And you, Widow?”

  
Silence.

  
“Amelie? What’s your ETA, bebe?” Sombra asked next, appearing next to Gabriel and sliding into the desk chair.

  
Silence.

  
Gabriel looked at Sombra, but before he could ask, Athena broke in.

  
_ ‘I cannot locate Widowmaker.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 900 years later, I updated!
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

The mission, Gabriel decided, had probably gone to hell long before they’d actually left their respective safehouses, and, not for the first time, he cursed Akande for ‘ _taking some time off’_.

  
“Where did you last have her pinged?” Sombra demanded, her fingers flying across her purple windows, looking for anything and everything to figure out where her errant partner had disappeared to. “I’m not finding much—just flashes from her visor on the cameras…”

  
“Goddamnit…” Gabriel hooked his foot around another chair and pulled it over to the desk so he could sit. “This is just what we needed. Fuck!” he slammed his hand into the desk, sending papers flying.

  
_‘I have video…It appears that someone waylaid her near the personnel quarters. The room they entered I can not get video or sound. I’m sorry.’_ Athena reported, sounding annoyed with herself. _‘I believe it was Agent Vaswani's quarters.’_

  
“It’d be a shame if she was one of the dead,” Sombra commented behind clenched teeth, still fully focused on her screens. “She was a great beacon of information when it came to Vishkar. I can’t get anything to be any clearer, Gabe. We’re going to have to go there.”

 _  
_ _‘It will be a trap,’_ Athena warned, and both Gabriel and Sombra snorted.

  
“True, but I don’t think either of us are leaving without Amélie,” Gabriel said, and Athena made a noise in the back of her hypothetical, electronic throat. “What is it?”

 _  
_ _‘Sombra has…decrypted some files. Satya Vaswani and Aleksandra Zaryanova are now added to the casualty list…although Agent Zarya was killed on a mission.’_

  
Sombra looked at Gabriel. “So…her death could have been the catalyst? How did she die?”

 _  
__‘My…files are incomplete. It doesn’t say, but it appears that she was mauled to death, perhaps by a wild animal. Dr. Ziegler was due to perform an autopsy, but that file appears to be missing.’_ The AI paused. _‘I…would recommend trying to find the file, but locating Widowmaker is our first priority.’_

  
Gabriel declined to mention to the AI that she was talking like she was part of their group, considering she probably didn’t hold Talon in any sort of high regards. “Athena, can you make me a list of the men who are not on your casualty list?” Gabriel asked instead, hoping that he’d be able to narrow out their suspect.

 _  
_ _‘Torbjorn Lindholm, Hanzo Shimada, Reinhardt Wilhelm, Jesse McCree, and Soldier 76,’_ she replied, and Gabriel growled.

  
“It isn’t Jesse, Athena. And I doubt it’s 76—Jack couldn’t do anything like this,” he snapped. Sombra just looked at him, and shook her head.

  
“And how long has it been since you’ve talked civilly? 8 or 9 years? And didn’t you shoot him last time you saw him? Anyways, didn’t you say that you found Shimada’s legs? I can’t see him being our killer if that’s the case.” Sombra sat back from her screens, scowling. “I can’t get access to anything else yet, not without damaging her.”

 _  
_ _‘I would appreciate it if you did not damage me, Sombra,’_ Athena said. _‘Hanzo Shimada was in possession of two other spare sets of prosthetic limbs, so I would not remove him from the running. He was also involved in an argument with Genji 48 hours before Ana recorded her message.’_

  
Gabriel paused, and looked at Sombra. “Do…do you mean that this entire slaughter happened within 2 days?”

  
Athena stayed quiet, and for once, Gabriel decided not to pry. “Those omnics were fairly bashed up—Lindholm never liked the tin cans in the first place, and Wilhelm would go to his grave before he admitted out loud that he really thought the world would be a better place without them. Shimada elder…well, it would make sense that if he finished off his brother for good, he’d have to fight and deal with the others. 76…I couldn’t see Jack doing this, but like you said, Sombra, I haven’t spoken civilly to him in years. And I refuse to believe that this is Jesse.”

  
Sombra sighed. “Bleeding heart, Gabe. You’re lucky Talon hasn’t used the cowboy against you yet.”

  
The words _‘lucky that I haven’t used him against you’_ were unsaid, but understood.

  
“Athena, how long until you’re fully downloaded and transferred?” he asked, and the AI hummed.

 

_‘12 minutes.’_

  
“Right—Sombra, you stay here, try and figure out the privacy programming on Athena and look to see if Zhou left any clues about. I’m going to head after Widow.” He said, standing.

  
“What?” Sombra spun to look at Gabriel, before frowning. “Oh, no no no, we are not splitting up. We did that last time, and look what happened—Amélie disappeared. We are _not_ splitting up.”

  
Gabriel shook his head. “We don’t have the time—I doubt that whoever this is knows where we are, and if he does, you have your cloaking tech and can slip out of sight. I, on the other hand, can get to Vaswani’s room and get Amélie without needing anything like stairs. I’ll be fast, so don’t you worry.” He grinned behind the mask as Sombra growled, turning her back on him with a scowl.

  
“I’m not scared! Or worried!” she snapped, and Gabriel laughed as he left the room.

* * *

 

  
About four minutes later, Gabriel regretted leaving her behind.

  
“I’m in the staff quarters. Entire area smells like old blood,” he said, walking past another empty common room, the only thing in it layers of dust and discarded personal effects. Headphones, books, tablets…

 _  
_ _‘What, are you the ones who’s scared now?’_ Sombra snapped, but Gabriel ignored the barb to focus on the lights under the kitchen door. He tapped his communicator, muting Sombra, before slipping under the door. If their perpetrator was inside, Gabriel would take him down without a second thought.

  
Instead the kitchen was empty. The stove was on, however, something that made Gabriel think of Jesse.

  
“…damnit, don’t be him,” he muttered to himself, reaching up to unmute Sombra. “No one’s in the kitchen, if you were wondering.”

 _  
_ _‘Don’t put me on mute!’_ Sombra hissed. _‘You’re going to give me a goddamn heart attack, Gabe, and if this guy takes you out, then what am I supposed to do about it?’_ She paused, stewing, before finally giving in. _‘Anything in there of interest?’_

  
“Stove on and doors open, dirty dishes in the sink and half empty bottles of booze,” he replied, trying to steer his mind away from yelling at Jesse for doing the exact same things back in Blackwatch and leaving the kitchens a mess. “Looks like they were going to…fuck.”

 _  
_ _‘Looking to fuck? Well, everyone’s dead, so I don’t think they were going to have much luck with that,’_ Sombra said snidely, before making an affronted noise as Gabriel shushed her. _‘What.’_

  
“The…freezer is open.” Gabriel pulled the door open further. “You know how, the first time you saw me do my thing—“

 _  
_ _‘Yeah, when you ate that person in France?’_

  
“It’s kind of like that.” Gabriel swallowed. “There’s bags in here, frozen m—“ he almost couldn’t bring himself to consider what it was, despite knowing fully and entirely. “These bags have names on them, Sombra.”

  
Silence from her side of things. Athena, too.

  
“I—Athena, you can add Lena Oxton to your list of casualties. I have—“ he shook his head, shoving the bag labeled ‘ _Oxton, thigh’_ back into the freezer and slamming it shut. “Our killer is a cannibal.”

 _  
_ _‘Bullshit.’_ Gabriel could hear her typing away. _‘You just saw someone’s leftovers, that’s all.’_

  
“Do you want to come over here and look at this, Sombra?” Gabriel snapped, swiftly silencing her. “Because I am not opening that freezer again. I may want some of these people dead because it is my _job_ to want them dead, but I helped to _train_ Lena. I helped drag Genji back from _death_ and pointed him in the direction of the Shambali. I kept Jesse out of jail and trained him to be the best _goddamn_ operative in Blackwatch. I was the _first_ to know that Ana was pregnant, and I let Fareeha hang off of me like I was her own personal jungle gym. So, when I say that there’s bags of meat here that have ‘ _Oxton, ribs’,_ written on them, I don’t mean that _Lena left her lunch in the freezer before she bit the dust_!”

  
The last bit he practically roared at Sombra, the kitchen filling with dark particles that began to coat every surface like dirty snow. There was a stunned silence on the other end of the coms from Sombra as Gabriel huffed, trying to bring himself under control again. It was hard to function when his lower half was in 5000 pieces, floating around the room.

  
After what felt like forever, Sombra spoke. ‘ _You okay, boss?’_ she asked tentatively, and Gabriel grunted in response. No, he wasn’t okay, but he was the Reaper—he wasn’t supposed to be broken up about the death of Lena Oxton, pain in his ass number 4.

  
“Fine—Athena, has there been any movement around Vaswani’s quarters? I’m heading there now.”

  
Silence, and then Sombra swore, and her fingers started moving again over her screens, clattering even though they didn’t need to.

 _  
_ _‘Someone’s shut her down—damnit I didn’t notice.’_

  
“Is the download still going?” Gabriel asked, clicking the stove and lights off as he left the kitchen. Anything to make it look less lived in would ease his mind. “Or will we be stuck here for another 45 minutes after you restart her?”

 _  
_ _‘Paused at 94%, so we’re okay there. Just…’_ Sombra paused, and Gabriel could tell that she was biting her lip, worrying even if she said she wasn’t. _‘Be careful, okay? This isn’t good. Go get Amélie, and let’s get out of here. Hell, once you tell me you have Amélie, I’ll start heading for the ship so we can get out of here right away. Let’s leave cleaning this place up to a few hundred pounds of explosives and someone else, yeah?’_

  
“Yeah,” Gabriel echoed, moving silently through the halls. The scent of blood hadn’t diminished, but was growing stronger, and Gabriel hoped that the source of the blood wasn’t Amélie.

  
Sweeping past the abandoned rooms—Shimada G, Shimada H, Lindholm T, Amari A—Gabriel finally stopped in front of Vaswani’s.

  
“I’m going in,” he whispered. “ETA on Athena coming back online?”

 _  
_ _’45 seconds and going down, Gabe. I’m going to get ready to move on your word.’_ she replied.

  
With that, Gabriel took a deep breath that was more for his nerves than anything else, and swept through a crack in the door.

  
The room was neat and orderly, if not nearly entirely empty. No real furniture, no photographs, and more importantly, no Widowmaker.

 _  
_ _‘She’s coming back online…now! Athena! Are you okay?’_ Sombra’s voice seemed to echo in his head as Gabriel quickly and quietly swept the room.

 _  
_ _‘I…am functioning,’_ the AI replied, although she didn’t seem so confidant of her answer.

  
Neither did Sombra. _‘I’m going to do a quick sweep of your programming, make sure nothing nasty got added to your code. What about you, Gabe? Is she there?’_

  
“No, no one. I’m going to head out and comb the other rooms—“ Gabriel started to say, when the door slid shut the last little bit, sealing. “Sombra, did you trigger that?”

 _  
_ _‘No! Athena, was that you? I can’t even force the door open from here—‘_ she hissed, spitting half-formed curses at no one. ‘ _I’m going to have to go to the actual door to force it open.’_

 _  
_ _‘Movement in the hall,’_ Athena reported, sounding strained. ‘ _I can’t identify who—‘_

  
“Get out of there, Sombra!” Gabriel yelled, looking for any exit from his seemingly airtight prison.   
Who ever this was knew about his special traits, and had accommodated for them.

 _  
_ _‘Sí, sí! Leaving right…now! Athena is downloaded, Gabe, and I’m streaming her data to you. Meet me by the workshops—‘_ she dropped off suddenly and entirely, and Gabriel hoped to hell it was because she was getting past their killer, and not because she had been grabbed.

  
Turning back to his own issues, he tapped into Athena and grabbed one of the few pieces of furniture in the room. If he could chip the window, he could get out. “What’s Sombra’s status?”

 _  
_ _‘My camera’s have been disabled,’_ the AI replied, aggravated. _‘But my motion sensors indicate that there are two sets of movement in the science wing. I will let you know if anything changes, Reaper.’_

  
He grunted, discarding the chair after an experimental swing sent it bouncing away from the window and pulling out his shotguns. He hated to use them when they weren’t killing—they were draining to use and consuming the souls were not only for his health, but the operation of the guns—but his options for escape were few and in between.

  
Then Sombra screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work on other things??? Work on my blog??? Work on not being sick??? I don't know what u mean...........
> 
> * * *
> 
> Poor Sombra :)
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

That was it. Gabriel was officially finished with Gibraltar and the mission and their killer, be it Jack or Torbjörn or Reinhardt or Hanzo or goddamn Jesse. He was going to get his people and he was going to get them out, _now_.

“Status!” he barked at Athena, opening fire on the window, shattering it in three shots. He tossed the guns to the floor—they would return to his person shortly because they always did—and slid through the broken glass into the air beyond. It was starting to get dark, the sky turning a dusty sort of colour that signaled that evening was drawing to a close and night was coming.

If the killer thought that would make Gabriel withdraw, they obviously didn’t know the monster that he’d become.

_‘I have movement outside of floor F, wing 3,’_ Athena replied, and if Gabriel was the kind of person to bite his lips in frantic worry, he would be. Not only was the movement in the medical wing, but it was down by the morgue.

“Can you get heat signatures, or is that part of your programming disabled too?” Maybe it was rude of him to hiss like he was to Athena, but Sombra was gone, Amélie was gone, his family – Jack, Ana, Jesse, Fareeha—was _gone_.

There was no response from the AI, but once she did, Gabriel almost felt bad for snapping. Almost.

_‘I can not access 75% of my programing due to Sombra restricting my access as a precaution. My sensors have identified three heat signatures in the lower level morgue.’_ Athena’s voice was level, more so than Gabriel’s once he stopped where Sombra had been ambushed.

Blood pooled on the floor, and Gabriel could see where Sombra had stumbled out of her technology assisted invisibility, bloody footprints in the shape of those shoes that Gabriel had rolled his eyes at leading off to the side before disappearing. Blood streaked the wall from where she’d tried to get a grip, to escape maybe, and he crouched, carefully picking up her gun.

“Athena, could she still be alive after losing this much blood?” He asked quietly as he set the weapon down on the nearest table. He really didn’t want to know the answer, but he had to know.

_‘Yes. She has not lost enough blood to dictate a Class Three Hemorrhage distinction,’_ came the cool reply, before Athena’s voice softened. ‘ _She will be fine as long as you get to her soon, Reaper.’_

“Gabriel—just—” he motioned with a hand, then shook his head. “What’s the quickest way down there?”

* * *

 

Letting Athena map his rout proved to be one of the better idea’s Gabriel’d had during the entire shit-storm of an operation, the AI leading him through air vents and cracks in the floors until he was standing outside of Medical again, ready to rush past the prosthetics laying out on display.

_‘R—Gabriel,’_ Athena said, quietly. _‘There is only one heat source currently in the morgue. I advise you to proceeded with caution.’_

“…Right. Thank you.” One heat source, but was that because who ever was doing this had taken Sombra, or Amélie, to a different location, or—

_‘I suggest you hurry as well, Gabriel. If it is Sombra, her bleeding may become worse, leading to the need for emergency medical care.’_ Athena’s voice prompted, snapping Gabriel out of his thoughts and into motion.  

He moved down the halls as quickly and quietly as possible, ghosting past corners filled with dust until he came across a trail of blood, thick drops of liquid that stained the pale tiles red. The smell was unbearable.

The door to the morgue wasn’t fully closed when Gabriel approached it, the cool air steaming as he pulled it fully open. He stepped inside, and the lights snapped on, temporarily blinding Gabriel. He blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to clear his vision, but once he did, he almost wished he hadn’t.

The first thing his eyes were drawn to was the casings for Sombra’s spinal implants, tossed to the side and coated in blood. Then he turned and there was Sombra herself, face down on the floor, blood streaming from her back and shoulder.

“Sombra!” Maybe he shouldn’t have shouted, but if his heart still beat, Gabriel would have sworn it was in his throat. He rushed over, crouching as his hands hovered over her, almost afraid to touch. She wasn’t dead yet, he couldn’t see her soul, but what if his touch was all it took to draw it out?

“…” His eyes snapped from her back, blood streaming though her outfit and wires poking through, to her face, to where she was looking at him, trying to talk even through the pain.

“Hush, ser tranquilo, no habla, Sombra,” (Hush, be quiet, don’t speak, Sombra,) Gabriel said, before almost jumping as she grasped for his hand, squeezing it.

“Gabriel?” she whispered, trying her best to push herself up, before half collapsing on Gabriel’s lap. “Usted tiene que ayudarla…” (You need to help her…)

Gabriel was about to ask who Sombra meant, when the soul caught his eye. It was not the same dirty red and black streaked thing that he harvested on missions, harvested away from old Overwatch operatives turned traitor, harvested from gang members Talon no longer wanted in their pockets. Instead it was a pale thing, blue and white with streaks of gold and purple. Gabriel knew he had to take it, that he couldn’t let it linger and fade away into nothing.

He owed that much to Amélie, at least.

Ignoring Athena’s voice echoing in his ears, ignoring how Sombra sighed as he ran his hand through her hair before he stood, ignoring the body hanging from the ceiling, Gabriel held out his hand. The soul, all Amélie and Widowmaker, the soul of a dancer and a killer, prideful and soft, did not come towards him like the others would, and so he laughed as he took three steps forwards and cupped his hands around it.

“My apologies for being late, Amélie. Blackwatch never was any good at keeping you safe, huh?” he murmured, the laughter turning to tears as he inhaled, exhaled, and swallowed it in one breath.

Memories threatened to overwhelm him, like any soul of any worth, but Gabriel pushed through to kneel by Sombra again.

“Athena, is there still…is there medical supplies that haven’t expired that I can use in this wing?” he asked, quietly, and got an equally quiet response.

_‘Yes. OR 8 is available,’_ she said. _‘Please, hurry.’_

The noise Sombra made as Gabriel picked her up could have made him sick if that was a bodily function he still had, and he held her close as he rushed to the operating room. It was, thankfully one of the ones free of any gore or reminders of other dead members of Overwatch, and he carefully laid Sombra down on her stomach.

“…Amé…?” she asked, before choking out sobs when Gabriel shook his head. “No…no…not Amélie.”

 He ran his hand through her hair again as she cried, and looked around the room. “I…only know the basics of first aid, Athena. Enough that I lived through the Crisis. What in here can I use for her?” At one point, Gabriel would have rather died than ask an AI for medical advice, but it wasn’t like calling up Ziegler was an option anymore. Instead, he swallowed his pride, and got to work.

* * *

 

Sombra was, or so Gabriel hoped, sleeping. Athena had managed to determine that she didn’t need a blood transfusion, and had walked Gabriel though the steps to care for the bleeding from her back. The gunshot wound, Gabriel had been able to patch up on his own with little assistance, but he’d never had to provide first-aid to someone cybernetically enhanced, on their enhancements. With the protective casings torn out and wires stripped and twisted, Gabriel did what he could, bandaging her up and placing biotic fields around her once he’d done everything else, just in case.

If he’d forgotten just one thing and she bled out, and he lost her like he’d lost Amélie…Gabriel took a deep breath, sitting on a stool next to Sombra.

“What…can you tell me, Athena? Anything new from our stalker?” he asked, quietly. He wanted to rant and rave, but knew that wasn’t the best idea, not with Sombra in the state she was in.

There was a pause, significant if only because Gabriel could hear the dead air where the AI had intended to speak, then she replied, monotone and lifeless. The opposite of her usual self.

_‘The launchpad, Gabriel. Where we sent up satellites,’_ she said, but Gabriel knew it wasn’t her.

“Let him know I’ll be there, Athena. And if he touches Sombra again, even makes a move to come here and hurt her…” he left the threat open ended as he pushed up and away from his seat.

_‘I look forward to seeing you, Gabriel,’_ Athena replied, before she seemed to shake off the dead feeling. _‘I—was I saying something? I don’t—’_

“It’s okay, Athena. It was nothing,” Gabriel said, closing the door behind him. “I need to get to the launchpad for the satellites. Apparently, he’s waiting for me there.”

_‘Are you sure that’s wise, Gabriel? If something happens to you, what will become of Sombra?’_

Gabriel snorted. “I doubt our cannibal has much of a use for rotted meat, Athena. And I’m entrusting her to you—if I go down, you do everything in your power to get her out of here, yeah? Someone’s got to report to Ogundimu, after all.”

Suddenly, Gabriel didn’t want to rush to the confrontation. He wanted time to let his rage simmer, let the emotions and memories contained in Amélie’s soul echo inside of him.

With a flick of his wrist, his shotguns were in his hands and he checked them over. They looked the same as usual, but Gabriel knew that the ammunition they shot would be different than normal this time.

His slower pace also allowed him to take note of other things, and he frowned, getting a clearer and clearer picture of who the killer was.

Bullet holes in the walls, blood dotting many of them. A broken bow, scattered arrows. A spray of blood where someone’d been shot, the spray a macabre stain.

“It isn’t Reinhardt—the man was useless with a gun. Nearly shot himself in the foot just when I asked him to hold mine one day, and he still uses that old hammer even though it’s practically an antique at this point. And he’d never be able to hurt Ana or the others.”

Bullet casings and rivets littered the halls, and Gabriel was thankful for his ability to float through the hazards. The rivet gun itself, cracked and beaten and looking all the worse for wear was tossed to the side. A clip from a pulse rifle, still half full.

“Can’t be Torbjörn. None of these holes seem to be from his rivet gun, and lord knows the man was stubborn enough that he wouldn’t use anything else. And I can’t see that his hatred for omnics could lead to him committing murder.”

He turned the corner and nearly tripped over several of Fareeha’s rockets, then stumbled past a bent and busted pulse rifle. Bloody handprints showed that someone had attempted an escape, although it didn’t appear that the unwilling donor had much success in that endeavour. Reinhardt’s shield, deactivated, was laying in the center of the hall.

“Jack loved that stupid rifle, stole it back from the UN too. None of these holes are from pulse ammo either, and I couldn’t see him taking down everyone.”

Each step brought him closer and closer to the launchpad, and closer and closer to a confrontation he didn’t want, a killer he knew, but didn’t want to admit it.

“…Shimada probably knows how to use a gun, but he seems like the kind of person who would be honor-bound to use that bow. Especially as a sniper. Plus, where would he learn who I really am? I can’t see Jack or Ana telling everyone about me. Maybe by listening to us talk?”

Athena offered no response to any of his comments, and Gabriel accepted that he was probably alone in his musings.

Finally, only five minutes away from the launchpad, Gabriel had to admit the truth.

“It’s Jesse’s gun. No pulse rifle round hit Sombra, and the holes in the walls…the casings too, from that six-shooter of his. I recognize the ammunition, I was the one who ordered it for him, after all. And he’d always been good with computers, I could see him rigging something with you, Athena.”

Gabriel stopped, and pressed his head against one of the supply buildings and tried to dispute the evidence he was presenting.

“Tell me it isn’t him, Athena. Tell me it isn’t Jesse,” he said, almost pleading, but Athena didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer, more like it. After a few seconds, trying to steady himself, he pushed back from building and, shotguns out and ready, he took the last few steps to the corner, and spun to face the launchpad.

 

There was a table. A lamp and a book sitting on top, next to a bottle of whiskey, one of the ones that Gabriel knew Jesse had been saving for a special occasion. A small tablet was propped up against the bottle, and a man reached over, pressing something before laying it flat.

“You took your sweet time, didn’t you?” he said, and Gabriel swallowed. “I figured you’d be here in a matter of minutes. Guess I was wrong, huh?”

Took a few steps forwards.

Shook his head.

“How…could you do this? To everyone? These people were your family— your comrades! The people you should die for, not _kill!_ ” he snapped, but couldn’t quite bring himself to raise his guns and shoot. Not yet.

Not until he had answers. Not until he knew _why_.

 

“Why would you do this, Jack?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the online translated Spanish-- I hope it's at least half-way correct haha.   
> Wasn't really edited at all so I am sorry for mistakes
> 
> * * *
> 
> Okay, so here's the truth of the matter  
> Widow was supposed to survive to the bitter, bitter end.   
> Instead I had a bad night at work, agravating coworkers and customers, annnnnnnnnd that's why she died.  
> (Truthfully, it could have been 1 of 4 characters but Amélie drew the short straw)
> 
> * * *
> 
> So, how many of you guys thought it was someone other than Jack? B3c
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

For a moment, there was nothing but silence following Gabriel’s question. The gulls were quiet in the encroaching gloom and the waves weren’t crashing against the rocks despite the wind. It was just Gabriel staring down Jack, and Jack staring into the distance, out to the horizon. Then something shifted, rocks fell into the water, and the gulls took to the sky, screaming.

 

Jack sighed and shook his head, almost laughing as he turned to face Gabriel. Obviously, his visor was able to cut through the darkness because he had no issue focusing on Gabriel’s face.

Gabriel wanted nothing more than to rip the thing from his face and toss it, alongside his body, into the water below.

“Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t mean for this to happen? Not that it was an accident, but that I didn’t want everyone to die?” Jack asked, before shaking his head as Gabriel snorted. “Yeah, I wouldn’t believe that myself. Explaining myself is going to take a little while—there’s an extra chair there, if you want to sit.”

“I’ll stand, thank you,” Gabriel ground out after several uncomfortable moments of silence.

 

Jack shrugged. “Suit yourself. Did you guys ever go find Angela’s autopsy report?” His eyes flicked to the tablet and he poked at it, before frowning. “Nope. Oh well, I guess I can give you the basics. Lúcio—he was the one with the skates who sent you off that cliff in Ilios—Zarya—the Russian weightlifter who almost killed Sombra that one time in the States—and I were separated from the rest of the team during a mission. Deadlock wasn’t as dead as it was supposed to be.” He paused, snorting in a way that Gabriel knew from experience meant that he was getting the stink eye. “You told me you took the entire gang out when you brought Jesse in.”

“I guess I missed a few,” Gabriel crossed his arms, refusing to participate any more than he needed to in Jack’s explanation.

“Well,  _ obviously _ . They sent the three of us down into a canyon and buried us behind a landslide. We three were stuck in an air pocket, I guess, and getting out of there without help wasn’t really an option. Lucio was alive, but injured. I was mostly intact. Zarya, though...her neck was broken. Nothing either of us could do about it.” Jack paused and looked at Gabriel again. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit?”

“Positive.”

“Okay then. It took them…almost 10 days to get to us, give or take. They were having trouble getting to us because of the gang and because of the government, and we didn’t have anything to keep us alive—no food or water or first aid supplies packed on me. So…I did what I had to do.” He looked away, and Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “The report I gave to Winston said that we were attacked by animals in night who managed to get in through gaps in the rocks. They attacked us, started trying to drag Zarya’s body away to eat it, and I killed them. We used the animal carcasses to keep ourselves alive. Winston accepted it. Angela didn’t.”

 

“You ate Zaryanova to keep you and Santos alive.” So that was how it all started… It all stemmed from Jack just doing what he needed to do to keep his team alive. “But why did you—everyone else? Winston, Angela, Reinhardt…why did you kill them?”

 

Jack shakes his head again. “It—Angela wanted to talk to me about the autopsy—the wounds weren’t from claws and animal teeth, but my knife and she knew it. She told me that I would have to talk to Winston, tell everyone what really happened. And I couldn’t—I didn’t want to tell everyone what I’d done, so I tried to convince her that it wasn’t an issue, that she should just…sweep it under the rug. It was a one-time thing and it wouldn’t happen again. That didn’t work, though, so I threatened her and that…that worked even less. I’d already asked Athena to shut down in Angela’s office, so when she tried to push past me I pushed back and…”

He shrugged. “She fell, hit her head. And I—it snowballed from there. I knew that Zenyatta and Orisa could access the files if need-be so I took care of them, and Bastion as well. Torbjörn still had some EMP pulse grenades in his workshop, so I used those to shut the three down before I disassembled them. I thought that maybe I could shift blame to Junkrat and Roadhog, but then Lúcio became suspicious so I took him down, then it was three days later and I’d—”

Jack took a shuddering breath, and Gabriel was almost disgusted to realize that the man was crying.

 

“And why—the cannibalism? Did you gain a taste for human when you were in Deadlock country?” He snapped, and Jack’s shoulders shook.

 

“I—couldn’t get down for a supply pick up, didn’t want to leave, so I just—I decided to work with what I had. And if I broke it down, kept it frozen and didn’t look too closely…It didn’t make me feel so sick to cook with it.”

Gabriel shook his head. “So, you, what, killed your closest friends, your pseudo-family members, just because you were embarrassed? Lena, Ana, Reinhardt, Fareeha, Jesse—”

“What, no. No—I never—I didn’t kill Jesse,” Jack said, interrupting. “I’ll admit to the rest of them, but I know I didn’t get Jesse. I got his arm, but he put a few holes in me and ran before I could--.” He paused. “Lena…Lena and Fareeha and Genji hurt a lot. Genji—he came after me because I took Zenyatta out, and then his brother. He wasn’t thinking so clear and it was surprisingly easy to take him down. Fareeha...she was sleeping when I took her out. Made it easier on me. And Lena…I didn’t want to shoot her, but I couldn’t bear to have her find out what I’d done, so I just…shot her in the back.” Jack swallowed, looking away again. “It was easier, that way. I didn’t have to actually see her face when I—”

 

He dropped his head into his hands, his shoulders still shaking, and Gabriel finally looked away, feeling uncomfortable, but also hopeful. Jack hadn’t killed Jesse…there was the chance that he was still alive, and it was a chance that Gabriel was going to cling to.

“So, yeah. There you have it, the whole story,” Jack said, disengaging his visor so he could wipe his eyes and blow his nose.

“Sombra. And Amélie.” Gabriel prompted, watching as Jack didn’t put it back on. “You killed Amélie.”

Jack opened and closed his mouth like a fish, before shrugging and turning away. “You were going to just…leave. You were going to get Athena downloaded and then leave without dealing with—” he motioned to himself, and Gabriel blinked, before realizing what Jack meant.

“You killed Amélie and mutilated Sombra…all because you want me to kill you?” He snarled. Gabriel couldn’t believe it—all of this because Morrison had a goddamn death wish.

“Of course—why else would I have let Ana record that message on Athena’s servers? I knew she was there, waited until she left you that message. And I…I don’t have the nerve to do it myself. I’d hoped that when Jesse shot me that maybe I would bleed out or get an infection, but it wasn’t to be. They built us well.” Jack shrugged. “Besides…it makes sense that you’d be the one to end me. Get rid of Overwatch once and for all, right?”

 

Gabriel took a deep, deep breath, trying to keep himself under control. “Did you…really think this is what I wanted?” he waved his arm backwards, towards the rooms filled with old blood and destroyed weaponry. “I wanted Overwatch disbanded again, Jack. Talon wants you all dead, but as long as you stayed out of our way, I wasn’t going to do anything.” Jack opened his mouth, as if to say something, but Gabriel shut him down with a growl. “Lena-- Amélie fighting Lena was a mistake in Kings Row. And I wasn’t planning on killing Winston when I came here to get the Overwatch files. Those fights were just...circumstance. Egypt though...you came after me, so of course I attacked you.”

 

Jack stood, slamming his hands down on the desk, knocking the lamp over. “Then why didn’t you aim higher then, Gabriel? Why aren’t you attacking now? I’ve given you ample reason to do so, haven’t I? Or do I need to kill Sombra too before you-”

 

That was it. Gabriel had heard enough. He raised just one of his shotguns, took aim, and fired.

 

One shot, one kill. 

 

Just like Amélie always said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET THIS CHAPTER UP ;o; I was having trouble fleshing it out, but I think I did okay. It's been mostly edited, but the last little bit I spit out tonight and haven't really checked it over.  
> I've got one more chapter in the works, then it's on to other less cannabalistic pastures (unless I get bit (ha) by another idea)
> 
> * * *
> 
> * I tried to make it somewhat dramatic and give a half-decent reason behind the killling and cannabalisim, and I hope I did do an okay job...  
> * I figure, in this universe at least, Gabriel's guns are powered by the souls he eats, so when he ate Amélie's it changed his ammo into a shotgun-driven sniper rifle cartrage. Boom, headshot.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

By the time Gabriel made himself move, the echo of his shot had faded, the only sounds that of the waves crashing on the rocks and seabirds who squawked, disgruntled, at him. He didn’t look as he walked forwards, taking the tablet off of the table and righting the lamp before turning it off. Gabriel didn’t think that he could handle to look- Sombra needed him to be there for her and not torn into a million pieces.

Jack’s soul was still floating above the table as Gabriel approached, and that he could bear to look at. It was sickly red, black streaks choking out the pale blue that it had once been, and for a moment he debated what to do with it. There were people who would consider what he did to souls to be the same as what Jack had been doing to bodies. Hell, he’d even said as much when talking to Sombra earlier.

But, despite everything that happened, he couldn’t let it, couldn’t let  _ Jack _ , drift away into nothing.

Ignoring the soul for another moment, Gabriel took off his mask and reached for the tablet. Before anything, he needed to turn Athena back on and get an update on Sombra’s condition. It took only  a couple of seconds for him to restart Athena, but they were some of the most gut-wrenching seconds Gabriel had felt in a while. He didn’t want the AI to have also ‘ _ died’ _ while Gabriel was confronting Jack.

_ ‘Gabriel! Are you okay? What’s going on?’ _ Athena sounded panicked once the connection was reestablished, and Gabriel laughed. At least there was someone around who was worried about him still.  _ ‘Gabriel?! Is everything okay?’ _

“I’m…I’m fine, Athena. How’s Sombra?” he asked instead, dropping the tablet to the table and reaching towards Jack’s soul, pulling it towards himself.. “You…can add Jack to the casualty list too. I think you’re officially the last remaining member of Overwatch.”

_ ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to warn you, Gabriel, _ ’ she said quietly, ignoring his comment about Overwatch.  _ ‘Sombra is stable. Asleep at the moment…I do think that you need to take her to a doctor, however.’ _

“We’ll be leaving soon, Athena-- I’ll have Moira waiting for us on the tarmac when we get back.” Gabriel paused. “Will you be fine, coming with us? We are Talon, after all.”

_ ‘I will understand any decision you choose to make about me and my future, Gabriel, _ ’ was her only reply, and he sighed. He didn’t want Talon to cannibalize her.

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” he said quietly. “If anyone asks, you had already been deactivated when we landed and your servers destroyed. And I’ll say that Sombra was attacked before she could get anything from you.”

Athena hummed.  _ ‘I will get Sombra ready for transport, Gabriel. I do suggest you hurry.’ _

Gabriel nodded towards one of her cameras, muted his coms, closed his eyes, and ate.

 

Unlike Amélie’s soul, which was made of memories, sour and sweet, Jack’s soul was made of feelings. Bitter arguments and tart confrontations. Salt-streaked sadness and honey-sweet happiness. Loss and horror and joy and contentment. But there was one single feeling that Gabriel tasted more than the others.

The ashy taste of despair coated his tongue, overpowering all other emotions, and Gabriel sighed. If Jack had just asked for help, had talked to someone, maybe the entire debacle wouldn’t have had to happen.

Replacing his mask, Gabriel unmuted his coms. “Athena, now that you have full control again, what can you tell me about the state of the transport?”

_ ‘I am sorry, Gabriel, but I cannot. The outer cameras were destroyed, and I am unable to  get visuals.’ _

Damnit. Jack must have taken out the cameras before going after the three of them. He could only hope that the ship was still operational. “Okay, thank you, Athena. Let’s get the hell out of here."

* * *

 

Walking back through the base was no less sorrowful than it was the first time. Walking through empty rooms filled with discarded belongings and blood smeared on the wall, Gabriel started to notice what he hadn’t on his dash past. 

Birthday cards sat in one common room on the mantle. A picture of Lena and her girlfriend hung on the wall next to a picture of Genji and his brother. Laptops and gaming devices were strewn around without a care. Post-it-notes littered door frames and walls, reminders to get flu shots and not to bother Angela before 11 am. 

How Gabriel wanted to take some of the reminders with him, but decided against it. 

“Athena, Sombra has you entirely downloaded, right?” he asked, slipping into the medical wing. “Are you still connected to your servers here?”

_ ‘I am, if only so I can retain my access to the cameras. Sombra did download everything before she was attacked. Why?’ _

“I figure that Talon is going to send people in here to do clean up, to get Amélie’s body, to gather information. And I figure it’d be better if they can’t access the servers. Can you make them inoperable? I’d go destroy them, but…” Gabriel trailed off as he opened the door, to Sombra unconscious but still breathing on the operating table. “I’m going to have my hands full.”

Athena was quiet for a moment, before she answered. _ ‘I had disengaged from the servers, and activated a failsafe. Talon won’t be able to extract anything now.’ _

“Good.” Gabriel gathered Sombra up, mindful of her wounds, and a few more biotic fields for the trip. “Let’s get out of this nightmare.”

 

* * *

The walk back to the transport ship took longer, now that Gabriel couldn’t just phase through cracks in the walls. It wasn’t something he’d ever attempted while carrying another person, and Sombra wasn’t really the best candidate for a trial run at the moment. So instead he took the long way, letting himself get distracted by the once familiar and now horrifyingly unrecognizable halls of the watchpoint. 

Which was probably why he didn’t notice the rifle until it was literally shoved into his back, forcing him to stop walking.

“I don’t have time for this,” Gabriel growled, resisting the urge to clench his fists. He didn’t need to hurt Sombra more than she already was. “You don’t want to try me.”

The person holding the gun laughed, somewhat hysterically. “Yeah, Reyes? The mission go tits up or somethin’?” The voice was rough but recognizable.

“...you survived. Shit, so it probably wasn’t Jack who took out those cameras then.” Somehow the gun at his back made Gabriel relax, and he let out a breath he didn’t even need to hold. “Is that Ana’s rifle, or did you manage to get your hands on Amélie’s?”

“Ana’s. Where is Amélie?” The gun lowered until Gabriel couldn’t feel it, and he hunched over. He didn’t know if they were in league with Jack or not, but either way he was going to keep one damn member of his team alive.

“Dead. Jack got her-- managed to seperate us while we were running around like headless chickens.” They took a step back, but Gabriel didn’t turn around.

“Jack?”

“Also dead.”

There was a shuddering sob and the gun clattered to the floor, and Gabriel finally let himself turn to face Jesse. He’d collapsed on the floor near a stairwell, looking gaunt and not at all like the Overwatch agent who dogged him or the Blackwatch agent who was a pain in his ass. Ana’s rifle looked just as rough as Jesse, and Gabriel nudged it out of the way as he carefully crouched.

“How did you survive?” he asked, quietly, and Jesse shook his head for a moment, unable to answer. When he did, though, Gabriel couldn’t ignore the pride that shot through him.

“Morrison... Jack didn’t know about all of Blackwatch’s rooms in the Watchpoint, and I blocked Athena from those couple of floors. There was enough emergency rations there to survive on, but I couldn’t get away. He was still looking for me.” Jesse paused, then scrubbed his face with his hand-- his only hand, Gabriel realized. “This ain’t a hallucination or anything, is it?”

Gabriel wanted to laugh, but only shifted his hold on Sombra. “Nope, this is real. Come on, let's get out of here.”

Jesse looked at Gabriel and frowned. “You’re with Talon-- why should I go anywhere with you?”

“Because I need to get Sombra to Moira, and I’m sure that we can stop on the way to drop you off somewhere.” Gabriel sighed, before standing. “I’m going to get the ship ready to go, so you can get whatever things you need and join us or not.” His eyes flicked to Jesse’s arm. “Your prosthetic is in the medical wing, but it’s...it’s gruesome, if you go that way. And stay out of the kitchen.”

 

Not bothering to wait and see if Jesse was going to follow his advice Gabriel turned and started making his way back to his original destination. He wanted Jesse to come with them, he wanted to help, but he couldn’t force it. Not when he’s spent a good couple of years antagonizing the younger man. 

_ ‘Do you think he’ll listen to you?’ _ Athena asked as Gabriel set Sombra into the trauma carrier and began to move the dead bodies out of the ship and onto the tarmac. 

“I don’t know. I haven’t given him much reason to trust me, but I hope he does. How far away do we have to be from the watchpoint to exit the radio deadzone? I need to let Moira and Akande know the basics of what happened.”

“Couple miles and it should be clear. Winston couldn’t justify completely cutting off the rock, not when Gibraltar’s still an active city.” Gabriel nearly jumped, turning to look at Jesse.“You got Athena with you? You ain’t going to hand her over to Talon, are you?”

In brighter light, Gabriel really could see how bad Jesse looked. Thin and tired looking, he had Ana’s rifle and a bright pink pistol in hand, his prosthetic back, and his hair tied back with a yellowy-gold ribbon. There was a bag at his feet, telling Gabriel exactly how distracted he was that he hadn’t heard Jesse come up behind him and set his things down.

“Athena was shut down when we got here and Sombra couldn’t bring her back online. Or, at least that’s what I’m going to tell them.” Gabriel motioned to Jesse to sit in the seat nearest Sombra. “Can you watch her while I get us going? And do you have an idea where you want to go?”

Jesse sunk into the seat, looking at Sombra. “Shit. Morrison sure did a number on you, huh?” he muttered, before shrugging. “Don’t got any place to go in particular. Don’t think many of my hideouts are any good anymore.”

Gabriel grunted, sealing the ship and prepping for take-off. “Dorado-- Sombra has a safe house there that I use occasionally. You can rest up there for as long as you need to, get your health back.” He paused. “I’m glad you’re alive, Jesse.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND IT'S DONE! Thank you guys so so much for enjoying this weird fucked up story I wrote, and I hope the ending meets your expectations <3 I think my next thing won't be as full of cannibalism. It might even be fluffy!   
> Maybe ;)
> 
> * * *
> 
> * In my original plan, Gabe, Sombra, Amélie, Jesse, Fareeha, and maybe Ana were supposed to survive. I also toyed with the idea that Genji was going to live as well, but...  
> * Jesse lost his gun, but managed to scavange Hana's gun and Ana's rifle. With Jack thinking he was dead he could have attempted to escape...but then Jack probably would have gone after him again  
> * I don't think I'll ever write any more in this universe but Sombra and Jesse would end up being really buddy-buddy after Sombra recovered, and I don't think that Gabe would stick with Talon for much longer after what happened. There wouldn't be another Overwatch, but Blackwatch would probably reinstate with just the three of them
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> This is for you, Nox, for talking about my Kiwi-Eating Habit and me laughing at the Cannibal Joke for creating this. I need to work on some good happy fic to make things up to you guys haha
> 
> * * *
> 
> I headcanon that Fareeha and Hanzo and Lucio also all have prosthetic limbs and you'll pry it away from my cold dead hands  
> Gabriel "Smoke Monster" Reyes loves his Cowboy son, Hacker daughter, Rocket Niece, Ninja son, and his Brainwashed best friend
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)


End file.
